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Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani meets with Armenian special envoy Levon Sargsyan in Erbil in 2015. Barzani's uncle, Masoud, the leader of Kurdistan, has met with the leadership of both Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2017. (photo: Kurdistan Regional Government)

In the wake of Iraqi Kurdistan's vote to declare independence, Armenia and Azerbaijan – both countries with Kurdish minorities of their own – appeared to be taking time to develop their formal positions, mindful of the regional and global implications.

The larger regional states – Iraq, Iran and Turkey – all have strongly opposed the referendum, threatening various sanctions and rattling sabers. The United States also called for the referendum to be delayed; Russia expressed support for both territorial integrity and the peaceful expression of Kurdish self-determination. In the region itself, only Israel expressed support for both the referendum and the establishment of a Kurdish state.

Armenia’s foreign ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan told Eurasianet.org that Armenia “was carefully watching the developments,” and that a more concrete position was forthcoming. In the meantime, veteran politician Aram G. Sargsyan was reported to be in Kurdistan as an observer to the vote.

Unusually, Baku’s official position was expressed by its top Muslim cleric. “Azerbaijan, as a country suffering terrorism, is resolutely against the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) referendum on independence,” Sheikh-ul-Islam Haji Allahshukur Pashazade, chairman of the Caucasian Muslims Office was quoted as saying at a conference in Turkey.

But as in Turkey, where in spite of the tough official rhetoric some ethnically Kurdish members of the ruling party were sympathetic to the referendum, in Azerbaijan some Kurdish community leaders praised the referendum and KRG president Masoud Barzani.

Lithuania has moved to change the name it uses for Georgia to “Sakartvelo,” the name Georgia calls itself, rather than the Russified name it now uses, “Gruziya.”

Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament Seimas Viktoras Pranckietis said Lithuania’s official name for the Caucasus republic will be changed by 2018 as a “great gift” from Vilnius to the Georgian people, the website BaltNews reports.

“Georgians do not like the word ‘Gruziya’” Pranckietis said. “They prefer their country to be called ‘Sakartvelo.’”

Like most other post-Soviet countries, Lithuanians now refer to the country as “Gruziya” – a name many Georgians consider to be a relic of the Russian Empire. Georgians call their country “Sakartvelo,” meaning “a place for Kartvelians (Georgians).”

Getting other countries to drop the “Gruziya” name has long been on Georgia's diplomatic agenda.

In 2011, Georgia's foreign ministry proudly announced that South Korea, which had been using “Gruziya,” had agreed to make the switch. “This is of special importance for us taking into consideration the fact that number of countries, including those which are our friends, have failed so far to do so,” Nino Kalandadze, the Georgian deputy foreign minister, at the time, told reporters.

Earlier, in 2005, Georgia began lobbying Israel to drop Gruziya in favor of Georgia. The Israeli case was considered vital since a Hebrew variant of “Georgia” had been used for centuries before an influx of migrants from the former Soviet Union popularized the Russianized version.

Parliament in Kyrgyzstan this week began considering changes to the law that would allow foreign citizens to freely build and buy property.

The proposal, which was brought before parliament on September 25, is intended to promote outside investment.

This fix is intended to patch up a kink in the law that has in effect deprived non-Kyrgyz citizens the ability to acquire residential property in the country. Prior to 2013, foreign citizens and companies were able to buy or receive property on condition they received permission from a special state committee. Following a change to the rules that year, foreigners no longer required permission, but with the abolition of the committee, there was no procedure in place to regulate the transaction.

The draft bill proposes allowing foreigners to buy real estate so long as they have a permanent residence permit or an investor visa. One provision does, however, envision certain restrictions, such as sale of property to stateless persons or in near-border areas, on the basis that this could leave the country open to threat from “terrorist and extremist groups.”

Uzbekistan has already adopted similar rules for its capital city, Tashkent, although there’s a catch. Foreigners and non-residents of Tashkent can buy real estate in the capital as long as it is worth at least $150,000.

Until July, only officially registered residents of Tashkent and people who moved to the capital to work for the government were able to buy property.

Tajikistan’s highest court has over the past few weeks been convicting former top officials in the nation’s anti-corruption agency in cases that look to be not so much about graft as elite infighting.

Last week, RFE/RL’s Tajik service, Radio Ozodi, reported that Khurshed Jabborzoda, who had served as an officer with the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption before moving to the General Prosecutor’s Office, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to seven years in jail on charges of accepting especially large bribes, fraud and other related offenses.

Jabborzoda was reportedly detained in June on the basis of information provided by previously arrested associates. He worked in the anti-corruption agency until to moving the prosecutor’s office two years ago, Radio Ozodi reported on September 22.

Three days earlier, it was reported that the Supreme Court had sentenced the head of the investigative department, at the anti-corruption agency, Firuz Holmurodzoda, to 15 years in jail. Firdavs Niyozbadalov (AKA Firdavs Abdugafforzoda) , an investigator and son-in-law of former MP and secretary general of the National Security Council, Amirkul Azimov, was jailed for 13 years. The agency’s former head of investigations for Dushanbe, Amirsho Sultonzoda, got nine years. Others got slightly less severe sentences.

This is just the latest wave of convictions against leading figures in a state body that is indelibly associated in many people’s mind with the son of President Emomali Rahmon and current mayor of Dushanbe, Rustam Emomali. Emomali, who is often spoken about as a potential successor to his father, only left his job as head of the anti-corruption agency to take up the mayor’s post at the start of this years.

Armenian members of parliament on a rare visit to Azerbaijan. (photo: Republic of Armenia National Assembly Committee on Foreign Relations)

Two Armenian members of parliament have made a rare visit to Azerbaijan, where they spoke out against their hosts' “xenophobic propaganda” and incurred the wrath of nationalist Azerbaijanis.

The delegation was in Baku last week to take part in a session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, a European Union body devoted to parliamentary cooperation with its partners in the former Soviet Union.

“We came here because Euronest is an essential platform for us,” said Armen Ashotyan, the head of the two-member delegation. “Armenia is about to sign a new agreement with the European Union. The other reason we came here is that such an event could have well been used for anti-Armenia rhetoric and propaganda in the presence of European MPs.”

In a speech to the assembly on September 22, Ashotyan also spoke about “Armenophobia and xenophobia” in Azerbaijan's school system, and gave a book titled “‘Azerbaijan: Childhood in Hate’ to the host country's deputy education minister, Armenian media reported. It's not known what the Azerbaijani official's reaction was.

The other delegate, Mane Tandilyan, said she toured Baku with the aim of learning about Armenian sites there.

“Tomorrow we’re going to take a walk to different places in Baku to check the condition of the existing Armenian heritage,” she said on September 22. She didn't report back on her findings, except that she couldn't get into Baku's long-closed central Armenian church, but said she would soon brief Armenians.

An all-day conference in Los Angeles, to be held September 23, will explore ways that Armenian Diaspora communities can more efficiently and effectively interact with their homeland to promote social and economic progress.

The central theme of the conference, Innovate Armenia 2017, is “rethinking, relearning and reimagining identity, language, history and technology.” The gathering is organized by the University of Southern California’s Institute of Armenian Studies.

A key to change is shaping a “global Armenian identity,” said Salpi Ghazarian, the institute’s director and the driving force behind the annual conference, which is in its third year.

“Victims of genocide lived through the 20th century with a particular kind of mindset. In the 21st century, Armenians have a state, and are thriving around the world,” Ghazarian said in an email interview with EurasiaNet.org. “This mandates a change in imagining and thinking about everything.”

“On the international level, technology and cheap transportation have also changed the way societies live and nations interact. And they are particularly useful for a nation with a huge Diaspora,” Ghazarian added.

An Azerbaijani flag at an LGBT pride parade in Germany in 2015. Police have reportedly arrested more than 100 gay Azerbaijanis over the past days. (photo: Ghvinotsdaati, Wikimedia Commons)

Police have detained dozens of gay and transsexual people in Azerbaijan following a number of raids around Baku, with reports of torture and beatings, local LGBT activists have reported.

It's unclear what prompted the roundup, or how many people have been affected. Lawyers working on the cases say that at least 100 people have been detained over a period of several days.

"Suddenly, without any clear reasons to us, police officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs organized raids against gay and transsexual people,” said Javid Nabiyev, the president of the Nefes LGBT Azerbaijan Alliance, in a video message published on September 22.

Nabiyev said that the raids took place in private homes and public places where gay people are known to congregate. Some of those detained have been forced to inform on their friends. Family members and lawyers have been denied access to the detainees.

The Sweden-based human rights group Civil Rights Defenders spoke to several activists in Baku on condition of anonymity.

"Activists report that the detainees were subjected to beatings, verbal abuse, and forced medical examinations, as well as transsexual women’s heads being forcibly shaven," the group said in a statement. "Many were released only after giving up the addresses of fellow members of the LGBTI community, who were then in turn arrested and subjected to the same treatment. An undetermined number of those detained have been sentenced to either 20 or 30 days of administrative detention."

Police have said that the detentions are unrelated to the sexual orientation of the detainees and accuse them of being engaged in prostitution.

Making Tbilisi's streets bike-friendly is among the goals of Joseph Alexander Smith, the first expat-turned-Georgian to run for the Georgian capital's City Council.

Georgia’s upcoming local elections would be quite local, indeed, were it not for candidates like Joseph Alexander Smith, the first-ever expat-turned-Georgian-citizen to run for office in the country. His bid for a seat in Tbilisi’s City Council will test Georgian voters on a longstanding sensitive point – the extent to which a non-ethnic-Georgian can be accepted as an actual Georgian.

The right to safe movement, right to clean air and right to green space are the triune principle which Smith, a 32-year-old British-Georgian freelance journalist, environmental activist and cycling enthusiast, wants to bring to his adoptive home city, where cars and construction increasingly have the right of way.

Featuring grey, fast growing high-rises and a chronic traffic jam, Smith’s district, Saburtalo, epitomizes many of Tbilisi’s problems. Still, Smith and his eco-ideas got a mixed reception when he announced his candidacy over Facebook.

“Likes” and encouraging comments rained down from friends and acquaintances, but, elsewhere, there were frowns, too. Some declared it presumptuous for a “foreigner” to step into Georgian politics, which they regard as a strictly Georgian affair.

No matter that Smith was naturalized earlier this year. In this ethnicity-conscious country, many still apply the tag utskhoeli (“ foreigner”) to him. Smith, in fact, stepped into the very heart of a Georgian dichotomy – a tendency to be both culturally introverted and protective of Georgia’s ethno-cultural borders, but also open to new people and new ideas.

It did not take much time before nationalism-peddling tabloids began screaming about a British spy’s attempt to sneak into Georgian politics, prompting jokes about Her Majesty’s supposedly keen interest in the goings-on in Saburtalo.

The Russian Supreme Court has upheld a prior decision to shutter the country's largest Azeri diaspora organization, a move that was sharply criticized by Baku.

The All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress (ARAC) was liquidated on September 19 at the request of the Russian Ministry of Justice. Hikmet Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the verdict was “surprising” and caused “deep regret.”

“In general, we regard the decision to eliminate ARAC, which played an important role in the development of humanitarian relations between Azerbaijan and Russia, as an unfriendly step from the political point of view, which severely impacts the development of the strategic partnership of the two countries at a high level,” Hajiyev told the AzerTaj state news agency. He also called into question Russia's objectivity as part of the international team mediating between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh.

Omurbek Babanov, a candidate in Kyrgyzstan’s upcoming presidential election, meeting with voters at a rally in the town of Aravan on September 14, 2017. (Photo: Danil Usmanov/EurasiaNet.org)

Kyrgyzstan is brimming with indignation at what it perceives as the meddling of neighboring Kazakhstan in its upcoming presidential election.

On September 19, the office of Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced he had met for talks in Astana with Kyrgyz presidential candidate and multimillionaire businessman Omurbek Babanov. The meeting was given wide coverage in Kazakhstan’s media.

“I have known you for a long time. You have been doing business and gained great experience. You were head of the government,” Nazarbayev said, speaking in Kazakh and referring to Babanov’s stint as prime minister from December 2011 to September 2012. “I remember all this.
If the Kyrgyz people will throw their support behind a person like this, a person like you, then Kazakhstan will also throw its weight behind that person at any time. And I hope this doesn’t offend anybody.”

Alas, somebody was offended.

Babanov is the only credible alternative in the October 15 vote to Sooronbai Jeenbekov, the ruling party’s handpicked would-be successor to President Almazbek Atambayev, so the reaction was predictably fiery.

“Even though the leader of our friend-nation Kazakhstan stated that he does not interfere in the internal affairs of Kyrgyzstan, his words clearly demonstrate Kazakhstan’s preference as regards the future president of Kyrgyzstan,” the Foreign Ministry in Bishkek said in a statement.

Driving its point home, the Foreign Ministry explicitly described Nazarbayev’s meeting with Babanov as an “attempt to influence the choice of the people of Kyrgyzstan.”

Kazakhstan’s diplomats quickly fired back with an equally rancorous note.